Fair Housing

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Title VIII of the 1968 Civil Rights Act, also known as the Fair Housing Act, protects people from discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability when they are renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, seeking housing assistance, or engaging in other housing related activities. The Act, and subsequent laws reaffirming its principles, seeks to overcome the legacy of segregation, unequal treatment, and historic lack of access to housing opportunity. There are several statutes, regulations, and executive orders that apply to fair housing, including the Fair Housing Act, the Housing Amendments Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Affirmatively furthering fair housing is defined in the Fair Housing Act as taking “meaningful actions, in addition to combating discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics”.2 Specifically, affirmatively furthering fair housing requires that recipients of federal housing and urban development funds take meaningful actions to address housing disparities, including replacing segregated living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.3 Furthering fair housing can involve developing affordable housing, removing barriers to affordable housing development in high opportunity areas, investing in neighborhood revitalization, preserving and rehabilitating existing affordable housing units, improving housing access in areas of concentrated poverty, and improving community assets.

In accordance with the applicable statutes and regulations governing the Consolidated Plan, the Cities of Rome and Utica jointly certify that they will affirmatively further fair housing, by taking appropriate actions to overcome the effects of any impediments identified in the 2020 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice and maintaining records that reflect the analysis and actions taken in this regard.